The contrast between Atlantic and Pacific surface water fluxes

• Published in: Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography
• Main Authors: Philip M. Craig, David Ferreira, John Methven
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Stockholm University Press 2017
• Subjects: evaporation; precipitation; run-off; moisture flux; salinity; freshwater transport; Meridional Overturning Circulation; Oceanography; GC1-1581; Meteorology. Climatology; QC851-999; Pacific; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1080/16000870.2017.1330454; https://doaj.org/article/2a4b20a685554343a2c9a228915eaf81

The Atlantic Ocean is known to have higher sea surface salinity than the Pacific Ocean at all latitudes. This is thought to be associated with the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and deep water formation in the high latitude North Atlantic – a phenomenon not present anywhere in the Pacific. This asymmetry may be a result of salt transport in the ocean or an asymmetry in the surface water flux (evaporation minus precipitation; $ E-P $) with greater $ E-P $ over the Atlantic than the Pacific. In this paper, we focus on the surface water flux. Seven estimates of the net freshwater flux ($ E-P-R $ including run-off, R), calculated with different methods and a range of data sources (atmospheric and oceanic reanalyses, surface flux data-sets, hydrographic sections), are compared. It is shown that $ E-P-R $ over the Atlantic is consistently greater than $ E-P-R $ over the Pacific by about 0.4 Sv (1 Sv $ \equiv 10^6\; $m$ ^3 $ s$ ^{-1} $). The Atlantic/Pacific $ E-P-R $ asymmetry is found at all latitudes between 30$ ^\circ $S and 60$ ^\circ $N. Further analysis with ERA-Interim combined with a run-off data-set demonstrates that the basin $ E-P-R $ asymmetry is dominated by an evaporation asymmetry in the northern high-latitudes, but by a precipitation asymmetry everywhere south of 30$ ^\circ $N. At the basin scale, the excess of precipitation over the Pacific compared to the Atlantic ($ \sim 30^\circ $S $ - 60^\circ $N) dominates the asymmetry. Also it is shown that the asymmetry is present throughout the year and quite steady from year to year. Investigation of the interannual variability and trends suggest that the precipitation trends are not robust between data-sets and are indistinguishable from variability. However, a positive trend in evaporation (comparable to other published estimates) is seen in ERA-Interim, consistent with sea surface temperature increases.